From Thursday's Detroit Free Press:
Dearborn man gets prison for threats against commentator Debbie Schlussel
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A federal judge today sentenced a Dearborn restaurant cook to 8 months in prison for e-mailing death threats to conservative TV commentator and blogger Debbie Schlussel.
“I find it abhorrent,” U.S. District Judge Marianne Battani told Mohamad Fouad Abdallah, 40, of two e-mails he sent to Schlussel one minute apart in August 2006.
Schlussel, who lives in Oakland County, is an outspoken critic of what she calls government tolerance of Islamic extremists in the United States. She told Battani that the e-mails, in which Abdallah used sexist and Anti-Semitic remarks against her and threatened to rape and blow her up, had caused her to fear for her safety and become somewhat of a hermit.
The e-mails were prompted by views she expressed on her Web site, http://www.debbieschlussel.com/, about prominent members of Metro Detroit’s Islamic community.
She urged Battani to sentence Abdallah to the maximum 12 months in prison on the misdemeanor charge — interfering with Schlussel’s federally-protected activities. He pleaded guilty in June.
One of the e-mails said Hizballah, a Lebanese group that the U.S. State Department has designated a terrorist group, “is awesome.”
Abdallah, breathing from an oxygen tank, told Battani he was ashamed of what he had done and that he has suffered health problems ever since. Schlussel called the oxygen tank a prop and accused him of trying to gain sympathy from the judge.
Battani ordered Abdallah to undergo mental health and diversity training after getting out of prison. She lectured him about teaching fear, murder and intolerance to his 9-year-old daughter.
Take a look at Debbie's more detailed account of this story here.
Showing posts with label Debbie Schlussel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Debbie Schlussel. Show all posts
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Freethinking Isn't Free
From time to time in politics there are issues that are so divisive they exclude any neutral position--claim a middle ground only at the expense of your moral existence and any claim to rational thought. These kinds of issues force people to choose sides, even against people whom formerly were close allies.
Abortion does that: you can’t deny what grows in a pregnant woman’s belly, so if you want to endorse its homicide you’ll have to choose to make your own the specious arguments of that side, like that aborting mothers are having their “lives” saved by the procedure, and "anti-choice" advocates are not trying to save babies, but only hurt women. It took 25 years for Naomi Wolf to finally admit, “Yeah, we know we’re killing babies. You got a problem with that?”
The war against jihadism is the same; with an enemy so explicit about hating us, and so devoted to killing us as the Islamists are, that denying we're in a war means a complete mental shutdown (you know, sort of like the Democratic debate series). So if you really must try to prevent our side from fighting back, you’ll have to embrace the insane position that all that violence out there is the result of us unfairly attacking them.
John McCain’s likely nomination is going to force that kind of choosing up. Supporters of McCain, many of them highly respected, very intelligent, usually rational, many of them exemplary leaders, are simply not going to be able to keep saying that McCain is clearly a conservative when he clearly is not. And because they all know he clearly is not, sooner or later they're going to have to choose to explain those of us who won't trust McCain the same way liberals always explain conservatives, as just a bunch of intolerant, narrow-minded wackos.
By way of example, today Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley, whom we here at DU have, at least once or twice, had a kind word for, reveals how angry he is that McCain isn’t being embraced by “the Republican Party's right wing.” In fact, he’s gone and called us all “self-righteous screechers” and “right-wing nuts.” (“No room in GOP tent for free thinkers”).
Using as an example the experience of former Michigan Congressman Joe Schwartz, (a one-term Republican turned out in 2006 for being too liberal), Finley describes how Schwartz must now watch “the GOP’s self-righteous screechers try to hang a scarlet ‘L’ around the neck of his good friend John McCain.” Finley explains that the self-righteous party purists can’t stand McCain because he’s an independent thinker who has engaged in the “occasional flirtation with moderate politics.”
But to describe McCain’s magnetic attraction to moderate-to-liberal politics as an occasional flirtation is like saying that Kwame Kilpatrick has been rumored, in those rare instances he encounters a woman he finds more attractive than his wife, to bestow upon her a chaste, good-natured wink.
Nor does it speak well for Finley’s confidence in his man’s bona fides that he has to viciously attack someone like Ann Coulter as a “character assassin” with an “emaciated face.” (We recall that Finley last year insulted our friend Debbie Schlussel by denouncing her as a “chubby Ann Coulter”; Nolan must have a very exacting standard for when a woman is just right). Anyhow, Coulter’s ironical-satirical announcement that she would vote for Clinton because President Hillary might arguably govern in a fashion less liberal than McCain is intended to draw attention to McCain’s liberal record, and has nothing to do with actually endorsing Clinton.
I'm sure the non-angry Finley might figure that out. But he's chafing against his loyalty to the freethinking John McCain. And we already know that when one side in an argument hasn’t any facts, it promptly resorts to name-calling. (By the way, I don’t consider political commentators referring to McCain as “liberal” as calling names. I haven't heard anybody call McCain a "liberal nut." Nor is it possible to discuss American politics without placing people and ideas somewhere along the liberal-conservative extremes. On the other hand, I think being called a “right wing nut” is meant to be an insult.)
Finley wants to see the GOP move to the center, which means farther to the left. But we didn't win in 2004, 2000, and 1994 by running away from conservative principles, even if our leadership didn't always live up to the ideals. And if the party had stayed closer to its tradition the past few years, we wouldn’t have lost Congress in 2006.
But Schwartz and Finley think the Republicans will be better off with more freethinkers and less “ideology,” (i.e., less Reagan conservatism). Schwartz describes those folks with cold objectivity as “the same gang that got me.”
Not that I’m saying these guys are “liberals,” (chubby, emaciated, or otherwise). But just check out this list of what Joe Schwartz and Finley like and don’t like about the current Republican Party.
They dislike “moral absolutism,” “conservative orthodoxy,” and “doctrinal purity,” and they prefer “pragmatism,” “influence,”and victory based upon the sentiments of the “center” (the left).
Freedom of thought is one thing, being a “freethinker” another. The term “freethinker” actually denotes a person drifting along in a sea of moral relativism, resistant to hard-and-fast rules, and mistrustful of the constraints of tradition, religion, society, etc.--in other words, freethinkers are liberals. The opposite of being a freethinker is to hold firm principles. In other words, conservative. (The official flower of the freethinker, by the way, is the pansy. (“A Pansy for Your Thoughts”). Not, for all I dislike his politics, that I think McCain is a pansy.)
But it doesn’t shock my conscience if there’s no room for such freethinking people in the Republican Party. Don't they already have their own party, and at least 2 others if you count the Greens and the Socialist Workers Party? And isn’t Cindy Sheehan getting a new one up?
You see, it's the rest of us who still need a party. Leave this one alone.
Life sometime pitches us a moral dilemma. It may well be that I do vote for McCain next November, holding my nose, as all those other millions who say they’ll be holding their noses (here’s an idea: we can all leave the polls showing off our pinched red noses the same way the liberated Iraqis proudly showed off their purple fingers--we can even start the rumor that Bill Clinton secretly voted for McCain). I would do this, naturally, only to avoid the greater moral evil of helping elect a nation-ending Clinton or Obama administration. But the reason it will pose a dilemma is precisely because I'm squeezed from onse side by a pragmatic need to spare the country a Democratic government in wartime, and from the other by certain moral and political absolutes and orthodoxies that I hold dear--and that McCain does not hold dear-in fact, despises.
Also, I was one of the people extremely unhappy that in 2006 Republican voters felt that “punishing” their party by allowing a Democratic majority in Congress made either moral or political sense, when to me it made neither. Sometimes adulthood means you don't get a choice of good and evil, only a choice between evils.
In spite of Finley’s feeling the need to say it, McCain’s nomination is still not “inevitable.” It is not even mid-February. We conservatives have only just been bereaved of any viable conservative nominee, and we ought to be entitled to a few weeks of grieving the fact and discussing our options before we resign ourselves (if we do) to having to support a demon in preference to an archdemon. But I don’t have to put up with any revision of reality that will make me start believing McCain is a conservative.
To me that makes us, on some level anyway, principled. To the freethinking Nolan Finley, that just makes us all right-wing nuts.
Abortion does that: you can’t deny what grows in a pregnant woman’s belly, so if you want to endorse its homicide you’ll have to choose to make your own the specious arguments of that side, like that aborting mothers are having their “lives” saved by the procedure, and "anti-choice" advocates are not trying to save babies, but only hurt women. It took 25 years for Naomi Wolf to finally admit, “Yeah, we know we’re killing babies. You got a problem with that?”
The war against jihadism is the same; with an enemy so explicit about hating us, and so devoted to killing us as the Islamists are, that denying we're in a war means a complete mental shutdown (you know, sort of like the Democratic debate series). So if you really must try to prevent our side from fighting back, you’ll have to embrace the insane position that all that violence out there is the result of us unfairly attacking them.
John McCain’s likely nomination is going to force that kind of choosing up. Supporters of McCain, many of them highly respected, very intelligent, usually rational, many of them exemplary leaders, are simply not going to be able to keep saying that McCain is clearly a conservative when he clearly is not. And because they all know he clearly is not, sooner or later they're going to have to choose to explain those of us who won't trust McCain the same way liberals always explain conservatives, as just a bunch of intolerant, narrow-minded wackos.
By way of example, today Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley, whom we here at DU have, at least once or twice, had a kind word for, reveals how angry he is that McCain isn’t being embraced by “the Republican Party's right wing.” In fact, he’s gone and called us all “self-righteous screechers” and “right-wing nuts.” (“No room in GOP tent for free thinkers”).
Using as an example the experience of former Michigan Congressman Joe Schwartz, (a one-term Republican turned out in 2006 for being too liberal), Finley describes how Schwartz must now watch “the GOP’s self-righteous screechers try to hang a scarlet ‘L’ around the neck of his good friend John McCain.” Finley explains that the self-righteous party purists can’t stand McCain because he’s an independent thinker who has engaged in the “occasional flirtation with moderate politics.”
But to describe McCain’s magnetic attraction to moderate-to-liberal politics as an occasional flirtation is like saying that Kwame Kilpatrick has been rumored, in those rare instances he encounters a woman he finds more attractive than his wife, to bestow upon her a chaste, good-natured wink.
Nor does it speak well for Finley’s confidence in his man’s bona fides that he has to viciously attack someone like Ann Coulter as a “character assassin” with an “emaciated face.” (We recall that Finley last year insulted our friend Debbie Schlussel by denouncing her as a “chubby Ann Coulter”; Nolan must have a very exacting standard for when a woman is just right). Anyhow, Coulter’s ironical-satirical announcement that she would vote for Clinton because President Hillary might arguably govern in a fashion less liberal than McCain is intended to draw attention to McCain’s liberal record, and has nothing to do with actually endorsing Clinton.
I'm sure the non-angry Finley might figure that out. But he's chafing against his loyalty to the freethinking John McCain. And we already know that when one side in an argument hasn’t any facts, it promptly resorts to name-calling. (By the way, I don’t consider political commentators referring to McCain as “liberal” as calling names. I haven't heard anybody call McCain a "liberal nut." Nor is it possible to discuss American politics without placing people and ideas somewhere along the liberal-conservative extremes. On the other hand, I think being called a “right wing nut” is meant to be an insult.)
Finley wants to see the GOP move to the center, which means farther to the left. But we didn't win in 2004, 2000, and 1994 by running away from conservative principles, even if our leadership didn't always live up to the ideals. And if the party had stayed closer to its tradition the past few years, we wouldn’t have lost Congress in 2006.
But Schwartz and Finley think the Republicans will be better off with more freethinkers and less “ideology,” (i.e., less Reagan conservatism). Schwartz describes those folks with cold objectivity as “the same gang that got me.”
Not that I’m saying these guys are “liberals,” (chubby, emaciated, or otherwise). But just check out this list of what Joe Schwartz and Finley like and don’t like about the current Republican Party.
They dislike “moral absolutism,” “conservative orthodoxy,” and “doctrinal purity,” and they prefer “pragmatism,” “influence,”and victory based upon the sentiments of the “center” (the left).
Freedom of thought is one thing, being a “freethinker” another. The term “freethinker” actually denotes a person drifting along in a sea of moral relativism, resistant to hard-and-fast rules, and mistrustful of the constraints of tradition, religion, society, etc.--in other words, freethinkers are liberals. The opposite of being a freethinker is to hold firm principles. In other words, conservative. (The official flower of the freethinker, by the way, is the pansy. (“A Pansy for Your Thoughts”). Not, for all I dislike his politics, that I think McCain is a pansy.)
But it doesn’t shock my conscience if there’s no room for such freethinking people in the Republican Party. Don't they already have their own party, and at least 2 others if you count the Greens and the Socialist Workers Party? And isn’t Cindy Sheehan getting a new one up?
You see, it's the rest of us who still need a party. Leave this one alone.
Life sometime pitches us a moral dilemma. It may well be that I do vote for McCain next November, holding my nose, as all those other millions who say they’ll be holding their noses (here’s an idea: we can all leave the polls showing off our pinched red noses the same way the liberated Iraqis proudly showed off their purple fingers--we can even start the rumor that Bill Clinton secretly voted for McCain). I would do this, naturally, only to avoid the greater moral evil of helping elect a nation-ending Clinton or Obama administration. But the reason it will pose a dilemma is precisely because I'm squeezed from onse side by a pragmatic need to spare the country a Democratic government in wartime, and from the other by certain moral and political absolutes and orthodoxies that I hold dear--and that McCain does not hold dear-in fact, despises.
Also, I was one of the people extremely unhappy that in 2006 Republican voters felt that “punishing” their party by allowing a Democratic majority in Congress made either moral or political sense, when to me it made neither. Sometimes adulthood means you don't get a choice of good and evil, only a choice between evils.
In spite of Finley’s feeling the need to say it, McCain’s nomination is still not “inevitable.” It is not even mid-February. We conservatives have only just been bereaved of any viable conservative nominee, and we ought to be entitled to a few weeks of grieving the fact and discussing our options before we resign ourselves (if we do) to having to support a demon in preference to an archdemon. But I don’t have to put up with any revision of reality that will make me start believing McCain is a conservative.
To me that makes us, on some level anyway, principled. To the freethinking Nolan Finley, that just makes us all right-wing nuts.
Friday, July 20, 2007
UM-Dearborn Picked a Bad Time to Lie About Hidden Costs
Just in time for the University of Michigan Board of Regents’ announcement of tuition hikes raising UM-Dearborn student costs by 7.9%, (“With state aid down, U-M hikes tuition”), Dearborn Underground has obtained University documents showing how school officials planned to spend more than three times the officially stated cost of $25,000 to install Islamic ritual foot baths.
The documents also show that University officials knew the real costs months before UM-Dearborn Director of Public Relations Terry Gallagher began sending out talking points to inquiring alumni, taxpayers, and reporters: talking points falsely reporting the $25,000 figure, as well as misleading inquirers and news media about the public source of the funding.
Emails and other documents obtained from the University show that on June 4, 2007, in anticipation of planned news stories about the project in the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, Terry Gallagher drafted notes providing answers to key questions about the project.
Just before that, a posting by Debbie Schlussel a few days earlier, on May 30th, tipped off the public about the foot baths, in turn leading to angry inquiries to UM from alumni and concerned taxpayers. Debbie's post may have finally prodded the local media to finally report on the foot baths. (Dearborn Underground also posted the details on May 1 and again on May 28.). Prior to Debbie’s post, the University’s plan had managed to escape nearly all public notice and media attention.
All indications to date are that the University wanted it that way. Staying below the radar worked for many months, as UM's decision to install at least one of the foot baths in the campus University Center was made as early as October 12, 2006, when the subject was discussed at a meeting of senior University officers.
A June 5th email reveals that Gallagher sent his notes to ACCESS communications director, Hannan Deep, for her thoughts. Her reply expressed approval for his talking points, urging Gallagher to keep his responses on message, especially to keep repeating his “top key message: No tax payer dollars are being used for the project. (this seems to be everyone’s concern).” After that, Gallagher sent his talking points to UM staff as an aid for interviews and answering questions.
An internal copy of a memo from University Provost Susan Martin, also recommended the notes to UM staff, and described increased media attention “over the past several days.” Martin's memo said that “[S]ome of the information in the blogs and internet postings about the proposal is not accurate,” and were being reported “as if they are true.” As a remedy, Martin attached Gallagher's talking points.
Gallagher also forwarded his notes in responses to email inquires from unhappy alumni and taxpayers, and provided these "facts" to reporters as background information for articles they were writing. Detroit News reporter Karen Bouffard, and Detroit Free Press writer Niraj Wairkoo both received copies.
But it’s turning out that it was Gallagher’s talking points that are “not accurate” and have been widely reported “as if they are true.”
The University will undoubtedly attempt to explain the $55,000 discrepancy as primarily the cost of constructing the 2 unisex toilet rooms already planned, leaving the installation of the foot baths as a minor portion only representing $25,000.
But there never was any separate plan to construct unisex toilet rooms absent the decision to install foot baths. Instead, the unisex toilet rooms now have to be built to provide suitable access to the foot baths, and to mitigate the loss of restroom space, including the loss of at least one existing handicapped toilet, resulting from the decision to install special foot baths.
Further, the University’s own talking points make clear that the whole project was intended to solve the very problems caused by Muslim students using restroom sinks to wash their feet:
“We believe that these modifications [to our existing facilities] will benefit all students by providing appropriate facilities that do not interfere with the use of existing restrooms.”
In the end, not only is the plan not going to add to the University's toilet facilities, but unimpeded access to the new toilet in the unisex restroom will be impossible with potentially hundreds of Muslim students needing to use the same room to wash their feet several times a day.
It's Still Public Money
Gallagher’s second talking point that's the real kicker:
“What is the source of the funding?
“No tax dollars are being used for the project; the funding is being drawn from fees assessed to our students for campus infrastructure maintenance and renovation.”
This is the number one bit of misinformation UM wants to spread. As Hannan Deep at ACCESS urged him, this is the University’s “top key message.”
And he’s stayed true to it. In response to a concerned taxpayer inquiry as recently as July 17, Gallagher gave this explanation:
“The proposed project will be paid for with funds received from an infrastructure fee collected from all students; those funds are part of the campus general fund. While the annual appropriation we receive from the state also is part of the campus general fund, the accounts are separate. It's clear that you disagree with this project and I don't expect to change your mind, but I believe we have consistently and accurately described the funding source.”
It doesn’t matter if the accounts are separate as long as they're all sourced to the general fund. There is no way that campus operations, facilities, and maintenance are paid for with student fees alone. Besides, students (or their parents) are required to pay those fees, they and their parents are certainly "the public," and once the money is handed over, its public money, as it's under the control of a government university. Do they really think they can make us believe this is not public money?
We can’t be certain if Sue Martin’s June 5 email to “All Staff,” claiming blogs were posting inaccurate information was meant to refer to the funding details, but it's a reasonable assumption. After all, in order to contradict the "not accurate" blogs, Martin attached Gallagher’s talking points to her email!
Neither our postings on May 1 or 28, nor Debbie Schlussel’s on May 30th, contained any inaccurate information about public funding. Debbie reported accurately that the money was coming from “the University of Michigan general fund.” She went on to explain, correctly, that "if you are a taxpayer, you're paying for them, as the general fund is made up of federal and state monies and paid tuition fees."
In fact, it is a reduction of state contributions right now that's behind the UM Board of Regents' decision to raise tuition.
And, as we saw above, Gallagher admits in his most recent email the money still comes from the campus general fund.
So there's no inaccuracy here
UM's Endorsement of Islam
And there's one more talking point I want to include:
“Why are you furthering a specific religion?
“We are not furthering one faith over another. Instead, we are providing a service that many of our students need and value. This project also means that other campus restrooms can better serve the needs of all students.”
This is the worst kind of language-twisting. Any action good or bad, from shoveling someone’s snow to pushing drugs to committing murder-for-hire, can be called “providing a service” that somebody “needs and values.” The point isn’t whether the University is providing a service, but whether the University is placing public resources at the service of a particular religion in an unlawful way.
Clearly, the foot-bath project is furthering Islam in preference to all other faiths, or to any purely secular point of view. All students, Muslim and nonMuslim, are required to pay student fees that in turn are diverted to support this project. Meanwhile, only one class of students stands to benefit from the foot baths--Muslim students.
And as for the project freeing up other campus restrooms to better serve the needs of all students, that's an example of solving one problem by creating another. It was the University that created the restroom problem in the first place by tolerating student misuse of the facilities.
Nor is it at all likely that installing only two foot baths, in different buildings, is going to solve the problem of “accommodating” 950 Muslim students, in addition to Muslim staff and faculty, whom we are told need to wash their feet before praying five times a day.
More likely than not, there are still going to be students far off in other campus buildings who aren't going to travel to the University Center or the Fairlane Center to wash their feet. There will still be misuse of the campus's other restrooms.
So the real cost: $80 grand. And now the Board of Regents are boosting tuition at UM-Dearborn 7.9%.
Which only makes the $80,000 price tag seem like an even worse idea.
The documents also show that University officials knew the real costs months before UM-Dearborn Director of Public Relations Terry Gallagher began sending out talking points to inquiring alumni, taxpayers, and reporters: talking points falsely reporting the $25,000 figure, as well as misleading inquirers and news media about the public source of the funding.
Emails and other documents obtained from the University show that on June 4, 2007, in anticipation of planned news stories about the project in the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, Terry Gallagher drafted notes providing answers to key questions about the project.
Just before that, a posting by Debbie Schlussel a few days earlier, on May 30th, tipped off the public about the foot baths, in turn leading to angry inquiries to UM from alumni and concerned taxpayers. Debbie's post may have finally prodded the local media to finally report on the foot baths. (Dearborn Underground also posted the details on May 1 and again on May 28.). Prior to Debbie’s post, the University’s plan had managed to escape nearly all public notice and media attention.
All indications to date are that the University wanted it that way. Staying below the radar worked for many months, as UM's decision to install at least one of the foot baths in the campus University Center was made as early as October 12, 2006, when the subject was discussed at a meeting of senior University officers.
A June 5th email reveals that Gallagher sent his notes to ACCESS communications director, Hannan Deep, for her thoughts. Her reply expressed approval for his talking points, urging Gallagher to keep his responses on message, especially to keep repeating his “top key message: No tax payer dollars are being used for the project. (this seems to be everyone’s concern).” After that, Gallagher sent his talking points to UM staff as an aid for interviews and answering questions.
An internal copy of a memo from University Provost Susan Martin, also recommended the notes to UM staff, and described increased media attention “over the past several days.” Martin's memo said that “[S]ome of the information in the blogs and internet postings about the proposal is not accurate,” and were being reported “as if they are true.” As a remedy, Martin attached Gallagher's talking points.
Gallagher also forwarded his notes in responses to email inquires from unhappy alumni and taxpayers, and provided these "facts" to reporters as background information for articles they were writing. Detroit News reporter Karen Bouffard, and Detroit Free Press writer Niraj Wairkoo both received copies.
But it’s turning out that it was Gallagher’s talking points that are “not accurate” and have been widely reported “as if they are true.”
The Real Cost
For instance, under Gallagher's talking-points heading, “What is the cost of this project?”, the fact-sheet states, falsely, that:
“We have not yet received the proposal from the architect or solicited bonds bids yet, but we estimate that the total cost to install two foot-washing stations to be approximately $25,000.”
The stated amount is not accurate. According to a December 6, 2006 UM email, subject New Renovation Project Grants, the projected budget to “modify space to create 2 new footbaths and two new unisex TRs [toilet rooms]” was $80,000. A purchase order also was issued for the same project on April 3, 2007 for the same amount of $80,000. $10,000 of that was slated to pay fees for architectural firm designs and plans for the proposed renovations.
Nor is Gallagher’s statement accurate that the University hadn’t yet received proposals from the architect. Records reveal that the University had received at least two proposals from different architect firms in February and March 2007, respectively. Both proposals incorporated the University’s own proposed construction budget of $70,000. The University also told Debbie Schlussel at the end of May that only $2,000 had been spent so far; but the $10,000 invoiced by Niagara Murano had already been approved the previous April).
None of the records, proposals, budget items, or invoices anywhere mention a figure of $25,000.
For instance, under Gallagher's talking-points heading, “What is the cost of this project?”, the fact-sheet states, falsely, that:
“We have not yet received the proposal from the architect or solicited bonds bids yet, but we estimate that the total cost to install two foot-washing stations to be approximately $25,000.”
The stated amount is not accurate. According to a December 6, 2006 UM email, subject New Renovation Project Grants, the projected budget to “modify space to create 2 new footbaths and two new unisex TRs [toilet rooms]” was $80,000. A purchase order also was issued for the same project on April 3, 2007 for the same amount of $80,000. $10,000 of that was slated to pay fees for architectural firm designs and plans for the proposed renovations.
Nor is Gallagher’s statement accurate that the University hadn’t yet received proposals from the architect. Records reveal that the University had received at least two proposals from different architect firms in February and March 2007, respectively. Both proposals incorporated the University’s own proposed construction budget of $70,000. The University also told Debbie Schlussel at the end of May that only $2,000 had been spent so far; but the $10,000 invoiced by Niagara Murano had already been approved the previous April).
None of the records, proposals, budget items, or invoices anywhere mention a figure of $25,000.
The University will undoubtedly attempt to explain the $55,000 discrepancy as primarily the cost of constructing the 2 unisex toilet rooms already planned, leaving the installation of the foot baths as a minor portion only representing $25,000.
But there never was any separate plan to construct unisex toilet rooms absent the decision to install foot baths. Instead, the unisex toilet rooms now have to be built to provide suitable access to the foot baths, and to mitigate the loss of restroom space, including the loss of at least one existing handicapped toilet, resulting from the decision to install special foot baths.
Further, the University’s own talking points make clear that the whole project was intended to solve the very problems caused by Muslim students using restroom sinks to wash their feet:
“We believe that these modifications [to our existing facilities] will benefit all students by providing appropriate facilities that do not interfere with the use of existing restrooms.”
In the end, not only is the plan not going to add to the University's toilet facilities, but unimpeded access to the new toilet in the unisex restroom will be impossible with potentially hundreds of Muslim students needing to use the same room to wash their feet several times a day.
It's Still Public Money
Gallagher’s second talking point that's the real kicker:
“What is the source of the funding?
“No tax dollars are being used for the project; the funding is being drawn from fees assessed to our students for campus infrastructure maintenance and renovation.”
This is the number one bit of misinformation UM wants to spread. As Hannan Deep at ACCESS urged him, this is the University’s “top key message.”
And he’s stayed true to it. In response to a concerned taxpayer inquiry as recently as July 17, Gallagher gave this explanation:
“The proposed project will be paid for with funds received from an infrastructure fee collected from all students; those funds are part of the campus general fund. While the annual appropriation we receive from the state also is part of the campus general fund, the accounts are separate. It's clear that you disagree with this project and I don't expect to change your mind, but I believe we have consistently and accurately described the funding source.”
It doesn’t matter if the accounts are separate as long as they're all sourced to the general fund. There is no way that campus operations, facilities, and maintenance are paid for with student fees alone. Besides, students (or their parents) are required to pay those fees, they and their parents are certainly "the public," and once the money is handed over, its public money, as it's under the control of a government university. Do they really think they can make us believe this is not public money?
We can’t be certain if Sue Martin’s June 5 email to “All Staff,” claiming blogs were posting inaccurate information was meant to refer to the funding details, but it's a reasonable assumption. After all, in order to contradict the "not accurate" blogs, Martin attached Gallagher’s talking points to her email!
Neither our postings on May 1 or 28, nor Debbie Schlussel’s on May 30th, contained any inaccurate information about public funding. Debbie reported accurately that the money was coming from “the University of Michigan general fund.” She went on to explain, correctly, that "if you are a taxpayer, you're paying for them, as the general fund is made up of federal and state monies and paid tuition fees."
In fact, it is a reduction of state contributions right now that's behind the UM Board of Regents' decision to raise tuition.
And, as we saw above, Gallagher admits in his most recent email the money still comes from the campus general fund.
So there's no inaccuracy here
UM's Endorsement of Islam
And there's one more talking point I want to include:
“Why are you furthering a specific religion?
“We are not furthering one faith over another. Instead, we are providing a service that many of our students need and value. This project also means that other campus restrooms can better serve the needs of all students.”
This is the worst kind of language-twisting. Any action good or bad, from shoveling someone’s snow to pushing drugs to committing murder-for-hire, can be called “providing a service” that somebody “needs and values.” The point isn’t whether the University is providing a service, but whether the University is placing public resources at the service of a particular religion in an unlawful way.
Clearly, the foot-bath project is furthering Islam in preference to all other faiths, or to any purely secular point of view. All students, Muslim and nonMuslim, are required to pay student fees that in turn are diverted to support this project. Meanwhile, only one class of students stands to benefit from the foot baths--Muslim students.
And as for the project freeing up other campus restrooms to better serve the needs of all students, that's an example of solving one problem by creating another. It was the University that created the restroom problem in the first place by tolerating student misuse of the facilities.
Nor is it at all likely that installing only two foot baths, in different buildings, is going to solve the problem of “accommodating” 950 Muslim students, in addition to Muslim staff and faculty, whom we are told need to wash their feet before praying five times a day.
More likely than not, there are still going to be students far off in other campus buildings who aren't going to travel to the University Center or the Fairlane Center to wash their feet. There will still be misuse of the campus's other restrooms.
So the real cost: $80 grand. And now the Board of Regents are boosting tuition at UM-Dearborn 7.9%.
Which only makes the $80,000 price tag seem like an even worse idea.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The ACLU's Non-Aggression Pact with CAIR
Dawud Walid, Executive Director of CAIR-Michigan, was making the rounds yesterday to WJR, the Detroit News, (“Muslims won't fund footbaths”), and on his own blog. (“Regarding funding of the "footbaths"). He was explaining the ACLU’s position on publicly-funded Muslim foot baths at UM-Dearborn.
Speaking to the Detroit News, he said that at one point CAIR “’was concerned a public outcry would cause the university to back down from the project.
"’If the ACLU had decided to take legal action against the UM-Dearborn, we probably would have called for the university to raise the funds privately, just so that the UM-Dearborn wouldn't have to go through the trouble of having to defend its position against the ACLU,’ Walid said.”
This awfully curious comment raises several other questions for me.
First off, what’s CAIR got to do with any of this? Terry Gallagher, flak catcher for UM-Dearborn on this issue, told Debbie Schlussel that “the foot baths are the result of 'years of ongoing negotiations with the Muslim Student Association.'" In other words, the proposed foot baths are supposed to be a “reasonable accommodation” provided in response to requests for same by actual UM-Dearborn students. The MSA, a shady organization with links to the Muslim Brotherhood, is at least on its face a national student organization with a chapter at UM-Dearborn. But now it is turning out (and we’re all shocked, shocked) that CAIR is the outfit taking ownership for this whole thing. Ever since this received any press in early June, Dawud Walid has been doing almost all the talking.
Which only leads to our next question: Why does Dawud Walid and CAIR-Michigan presume to speak, not for the MSA and the Muslim students at UM-Dearborn, but for “the Muslim community” in its entirety? In addressing a secondary issue of whether or not area Muslims, instead of taxpayers, should be paying for the foot baths, Mr. Walid says on his blog (“Regarding funding of the "footbaths"), quote:
“The Muslim community has not stated that it would not fund the foot washing area. It would if need be.
“Since the school's position is that this is a public safety issue, which is not promoting one religion over others and that civil rights lawyers, Muslim and Non-Muslims, have informed us that the 'footbaths' being built with student activity fees is not unconstitutional, the need to privately fund the 'footbaths' does not appear to be incumbent.”
In spite of last week’s embarrassing revelations that CAIR has dwindled 90% down to only 1,700 paying members, CAIR still doesn't hesitate to speak for the entire Muslim community. (1,700 is CAIR's nation-wide membership, by the way. We don’t even know how few actually belong in Michigan, besides Dawud Walid). No matter. He seems to think there’s enough to entitle him to speak for all Muslims.
Our next question is, Why is it that Mr. Walid, CAIR, and “the Muslim community,” are all so confident of the legality of their demands for foot baths, simply because the ACLU says so? Isn’t it the American judicial system that makes determinations over whether a given action is constitutional or not?
Yes, indeed, but that’s only if someone files a legal action and forces the point, which is not always as easy as it sounds. And as far as Mr. Walid, the MSA, and CAIR seem to be concerned, the only potential party in this country who ever gets to file suits torpedoing other people's religious expressions or accommodations is the ACLU--and for some odd reason they aren’t interested in this one. In fact, their commentary on the matter has been laughable. Kary Moss, director of the Detroit branch of the ACLU, sloughed off the whole question of the foot baths by claiming the ACLU views "it as an attempt to deal with a problem, not an attempt to make it easier for Muslims to pray."
There really isn't any question any more that this is all intended to make it easier for Muslims to pray; Dawud Walid, Tarek Baydoun, and every other advocate of the idea wittingly or unwittingly admits as much every time they comment on the subject.
But it's wondrous to see how the eagle-eyed defenders of the First Amendment at the ACLU can overlook an 800-pound gorilla if they simply choose to "view it as...a problem," rather than "view it...as an attempt to make it easier for Muslims to pray." Imagine if they chose to view intelligent design in public schools as an "attempt to deal with a problem" of inconsistencies within classical Darwinian evolution. You know: intelligent design's not a religious thing, it's an education thing.
For all that, one of Ms. Moss's colleagues in keeping religion out of public space, Hal Downs from the Michigan chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, disagrees with Kary Moss on the legality of the foot baths, telling the Detroit News that the Muslim advocates for the foot baths have "got a problem, because it's public money they're using to pay for this."
Which is only common sense, now, isn't it?
Except that neither CAIR, nor the MSA, nor even UM-Dearborn gives a damn if this is constitutional or not. Their only concern has ever been whether or not, all things considered, they can just get away with it.
All things considered, that is, meaning a University decision made in the shadows without public comment, a compliant press playing see-no-evil, and the most potent civil-rights advocacy group neutralized in advance by a non-aggression pact with CAIR, motivated by who-knows-what collateral advantage the ACLU hopes to obtain in return.
The proof of it is when Mr. Walid admits to the Detroit News:
"If the ACLU had decided to take legal action against the UM-Dearborn, we probably would have called for the university to raise the funds privately, just so that the UM-Dearborn wouldn't have to go through the trouble of having to defend its position against the ACLU.”
In effect saying, "if the ACLU isn’t going to drag us into court on this one, we couldn’t care less who else doesn’t like it."
Are you starting to get the feeling this whole thing has been rigged? Are you starting to feel taken advantage of? (Those questions are for you reading this, not for Dawud Walid).
Still I've got one more for him. The whole point of national CAIR, allegedly, is to “advocate for justice and mutual understanding,” and CAIR-Michigan states its mission is to "promote...the image of Muslims."
So the question is, How is forcing unwilling taxpayers to fund Islamic foot baths going to contribute to mutual understanding and promoting a favorable image of Muslims?
Mr. Walid never claims that the Islamic community, hundreds of thousands strong in this area, and by no means, in the aggregate, impoverished, is too poor to take on this expense themselves. Instead, he just says they're only going to pay for the UM foot baths if they have to. And they will only have to if they can’t get the public to pay the bill for them; and that's going to happen, for all practical purposes, only if the ACLU fights them on this. To wit, Mr. Walid says:
“Since the school's position is that this is a public safety issue, which is not promoting one religion over others and that civil rights lawyers, Muslim and Non-Muslims, have informed us that the 'footbaths' being built with student activity fees is not unconstitutional, the need to privately fund the 'footbaths' does not appear to be incumbent.”
Not incumbent? How about this for an alternative to not incumbent: it is incumbent for PR that the Muslim community doesn't once again stick its finger in the eye of the nonMuslim community CAIR and the rest are always claiming they want to build bridges to. Wouldn't it be a damned sight better for the Muslim community--the same community Mr. Walid and his cohorts at CAIR are endlessly telling us is so misunderstood and unappreciated by America’s nonMuslims--to at least offer to take this on themselves?
But in the end, they won't bother. This was never about building bridges or promoting image. It's about gaining one victory at a time. It's about jihad, inch by inch.
And the arithmetic is all on their side.
One unaccountable public official
minus
one watchful press
minus
zealous legal scrutiny
equals
you and me paying somone else's freight bills to Paradise.
And that's just how easy it is to turn an 800-pound gorilla into a problem solved.
Speaking to the Detroit News, he said that at one point CAIR “’was concerned a public outcry would cause the university to back down from the project.
"’If the ACLU had decided to take legal action against the UM-Dearborn, we probably would have called for the university to raise the funds privately, just so that the UM-Dearborn wouldn't have to go through the trouble of having to defend its position against the ACLU,’ Walid said.”
This awfully curious comment raises several other questions for me.
First off, what’s CAIR got to do with any of this? Terry Gallagher, flak catcher for UM-Dearborn on this issue, told Debbie Schlussel that “the foot baths are the result of 'years of ongoing negotiations with the Muslim Student Association.'" In other words, the proposed foot baths are supposed to be a “reasonable accommodation” provided in response to requests for same by actual UM-Dearborn students. The MSA, a shady organization with links to the Muslim Brotherhood, is at least on its face a national student organization with a chapter at UM-Dearborn. But now it is turning out (and we’re all shocked, shocked) that CAIR is the outfit taking ownership for this whole thing. Ever since this received any press in early June, Dawud Walid has been doing almost all the talking.
Which only leads to our next question: Why does Dawud Walid and CAIR-Michigan presume to speak, not for the MSA and the Muslim students at UM-Dearborn, but for “the Muslim community” in its entirety? In addressing a secondary issue of whether or not area Muslims, instead of taxpayers, should be paying for the foot baths, Mr. Walid says on his blog (“Regarding funding of the "footbaths"), quote:
“The Muslim community has not stated that it would not fund the foot washing area. It would if need be.
“Since the school's position is that this is a public safety issue, which is not promoting one religion over others and that civil rights lawyers, Muslim and Non-Muslims, have informed us that the 'footbaths' being built with student activity fees is not unconstitutional, the need to privately fund the 'footbaths' does not appear to be incumbent.”
In spite of last week’s embarrassing revelations that CAIR has dwindled 90% down to only 1,700 paying members, CAIR still doesn't hesitate to speak for the entire Muslim community. (1,700 is CAIR's nation-wide membership, by the way. We don’t even know how few actually belong in Michigan, besides Dawud Walid). No matter. He seems to think there’s enough to entitle him to speak for all Muslims.
Our next question is, Why is it that Mr. Walid, CAIR, and “the Muslim community,” are all so confident of the legality of their demands for foot baths, simply because the ACLU says so? Isn’t it the American judicial system that makes determinations over whether a given action is constitutional or not?
Yes, indeed, but that’s only if someone files a legal action and forces the point, which is not always as easy as it sounds. And as far as Mr. Walid, the MSA, and CAIR seem to be concerned, the only potential party in this country who ever gets to file suits torpedoing other people's religious expressions or accommodations is the ACLU--and for some odd reason they aren’t interested in this one. In fact, their commentary on the matter has been laughable. Kary Moss, director of the Detroit branch of the ACLU, sloughed off the whole question of the foot baths by claiming the ACLU views "it as an attempt to deal with a problem, not an attempt to make it easier for Muslims to pray."
There really isn't any question any more that this is all intended to make it easier for Muslims to pray; Dawud Walid, Tarek Baydoun, and every other advocate of the idea wittingly or unwittingly admits as much every time they comment on the subject.
But it's wondrous to see how the eagle-eyed defenders of the First Amendment at the ACLU can overlook an 800-pound gorilla if they simply choose to "view it as...a problem," rather than "view it...as an attempt to make it easier for Muslims to pray." Imagine if they chose to view intelligent design in public schools as an "attempt to deal with a problem" of inconsistencies within classical Darwinian evolution. You know: intelligent design's not a religious thing, it's an education thing.
For all that, one of Ms. Moss's colleagues in keeping religion out of public space, Hal Downs from the Michigan chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, disagrees with Kary Moss on the legality of the foot baths, telling the Detroit News that the Muslim advocates for the foot baths have "got a problem, because it's public money they're using to pay for this."
Which is only common sense, now, isn't it?
Except that neither CAIR, nor the MSA, nor even UM-Dearborn gives a damn if this is constitutional or not. Their only concern has ever been whether or not, all things considered, they can just get away with it.
All things considered, that is, meaning a University decision made in the shadows without public comment, a compliant press playing see-no-evil, and the most potent civil-rights advocacy group neutralized in advance by a non-aggression pact with CAIR, motivated by who-knows-what collateral advantage the ACLU hopes to obtain in return.
The proof of it is when Mr. Walid admits to the Detroit News:
"If the ACLU had decided to take legal action against the UM-Dearborn, we probably would have called for the university to raise the funds privately, just so that the UM-Dearborn wouldn't have to go through the trouble of having to defend its position against the ACLU.”
In effect saying, "if the ACLU isn’t going to drag us into court on this one, we couldn’t care less who else doesn’t like it."
Are you starting to get the feeling this whole thing has been rigged? Are you starting to feel taken advantage of? (Those questions are for you reading this, not for Dawud Walid).
Still I've got one more for him. The whole point of national CAIR, allegedly, is to “advocate for justice and mutual understanding,” and CAIR-Michigan states its mission is to "promote...the image of Muslims."
So the question is, How is forcing unwilling taxpayers to fund Islamic foot baths going to contribute to mutual understanding and promoting a favorable image of Muslims?
Mr. Walid never claims that the Islamic community, hundreds of thousands strong in this area, and by no means, in the aggregate, impoverished, is too poor to take on this expense themselves. Instead, he just says they're only going to pay for the UM foot baths if they have to. And they will only have to if they can’t get the public to pay the bill for them; and that's going to happen, for all practical purposes, only if the ACLU fights them on this. To wit, Mr. Walid says:
“Since the school's position is that this is a public safety issue, which is not promoting one religion over others and that civil rights lawyers, Muslim and Non-Muslims, have informed us that the 'footbaths' being built with student activity fees is not unconstitutional, the need to privately fund the 'footbaths' does not appear to be incumbent.”
Not incumbent? How about this for an alternative to not incumbent: it is incumbent for PR that the Muslim community doesn't once again stick its finger in the eye of the nonMuslim community CAIR and the rest are always claiming they want to build bridges to. Wouldn't it be a damned sight better for the Muslim community--the same community Mr. Walid and his cohorts at CAIR are endlessly telling us is so misunderstood and unappreciated by America’s nonMuslims--to at least offer to take this on themselves?
But in the end, they won't bother. This was never about building bridges or promoting image. It's about gaining one victory at a time. It's about jihad, inch by inch.
And the arithmetic is all on their side.
One unaccountable public official
minus
one watchful press
minus
zealous legal scrutiny
equals
you and me paying somone else's freight bills to Paradise.
And that's just how easy it is to turn an 800-pound gorilla into a problem solved.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Muslim Foothold At Public College Is Firm -- So Far
Debbie Schlussel has done some reporting on the situation of the Muslim foot baths at UM Dearborn (“So Long Church/State Separation: University of Michigan to Fund Muslim Footbaths”).
Dearborn Underground also took a look at this earlier in the week (“UM-Dearborn Teaches How One Foot Washes the Other”).
I was amazed to learn in Debbie's post that the University Vice Chancellor, Robert G. Behrens, was the only individual responsible for funding the Muslim foot baths. According to Debbie, UM–Dearborn spokesman Terry Gallagher “confirmed that…Behrens made the decision to install the footbaths. Behrens was the sole decisionmaker. He did not have to go before a committee of University Regents to get the approval or consult with anyone else.”
This sounds awfully strange to me. I don't get how a Vice Chancellor can make a decision to spend money from the University’s general fund for any building project, especially one requiring retaining an outside architect’s services, without first having to obtain approval of the University Regents. (Not to mention one also involving compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act: Behrens must have consulted with the University's legal counsel). Or does the Vice Chancellor have his own discretionary budget, upon which he can draw if need be to facilitate, say, a religious accommodation? Even one that violates both State and Federal Constitutions?
On a more practical plane, I can understand why the Vice Chancellor did not go to the Regents, knowing as he must have that his decision would be objectionable to lots of people if it became known beforehand. If he went to the Board, there'd have to be discussion in a public meeting, where he would have to face questions about the legality of the decision and the necessity of installing Muslim foot baths, and these discussions would have been preserved in the minutes and available now for folks like us to review. This way, it was all but a fait accompli before we knew what hit us. I say "all but" because the baths haven't been installed yet.
UM's decision goes way past the “reasonable accommodation” standard required under our laws. This is not accommodating a religion, but facilitating one. This is not permitting a religious practice, but affirmatively assisting one. Past religious-accomodation disputes that were a lot less cut-and-dried than this one have made huge headlines, entailing epic battles, and were fought all the way to the Supreme Court. And to think that now we no longer have Justice O'Connor shuttling her way back and forth from one legal church-state standard to the other.
But this whole story is being vastly ignored by the local press. I think that's because the press likes to report conflict and drama, and it's hard to get conflict when one side is getting all its own way without opposition. If a man punches his wife it just isn't news. It's only news when she hits him back. So far, UM and the Muslim students haven't encountered any conflict.
The best way to change that and get the University’s attention is by filing a lawsuit. But that's a fairly forbidding prospect for isolated citizens without lots of resources. And we all know the ACLU isn’t going to stand up for the right side on this one. That’s what UM was counting on when they tried this.
According to Debbie Schlussel, the University says it's prepared to defend against a lawsuit if one is filed. Personally, I would love to see them try. And if a lawsuit ever were filed, the press would have to pay attention (if not necessarily full and fair attention).
In spite of UM's claim to being ready to defend this nonsense if a lawsuit is filed, I actually believe that a lawsuit would make them drop their whole project as indefensible. If that's so, all that's needed to get UM in that defensive posture where they belong is: a Michigan plaintiff, a local lawyer who understands civil rights laws, (or better yet, a national advocacy group), and a few thousand bucks to get things started.
Let’s hope someone finds all that before construction begins.
Dearborn Underground also took a look at this earlier in the week (“UM-Dearborn Teaches How One Foot Washes the Other”).
I was amazed to learn in Debbie's post that the University Vice Chancellor, Robert G. Behrens, was the only individual responsible for funding the Muslim foot baths. According to Debbie, UM–Dearborn spokesman Terry Gallagher “confirmed that…Behrens made the decision to install the footbaths. Behrens was the sole decisionmaker. He did not have to go before a committee of University Regents to get the approval or consult with anyone else.”
This sounds awfully strange to me. I don't get how a Vice Chancellor can make a decision to spend money from the University’s general fund for any building project, especially one requiring retaining an outside architect’s services, without first having to obtain approval of the University Regents. (Not to mention one also involving compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act: Behrens must have consulted with the University's legal counsel). Or does the Vice Chancellor have his own discretionary budget, upon which he can draw if need be to facilitate, say, a religious accommodation? Even one that violates both State and Federal Constitutions?
On a more practical plane, I can understand why the Vice Chancellor did not go to the Regents, knowing as he must have that his decision would be objectionable to lots of people if it became known beforehand. If he went to the Board, there'd have to be discussion in a public meeting, where he would have to face questions about the legality of the decision and the necessity of installing Muslim foot baths, and these discussions would have been preserved in the minutes and available now for folks like us to review. This way, it was all but a fait accompli before we knew what hit us. I say "all but" because the baths haven't been installed yet.
UM's decision goes way past the “reasonable accommodation” standard required under our laws. This is not accommodating a religion, but facilitating one. This is not permitting a religious practice, but affirmatively assisting one. Past religious-accomodation disputes that were a lot less cut-and-dried than this one have made huge headlines, entailing epic battles, and were fought all the way to the Supreme Court. And to think that now we no longer have Justice O'Connor shuttling her way back and forth from one legal church-state standard to the other.
But this whole story is being vastly ignored by the local press. I think that's because the press likes to report conflict and drama, and it's hard to get conflict when one side is getting all its own way without opposition. If a man punches his wife it just isn't news. It's only news when she hits him back. So far, UM and the Muslim students haven't encountered any conflict.
The best way to change that and get the University’s attention is by filing a lawsuit. But that's a fairly forbidding prospect for isolated citizens without lots of resources. And we all know the ACLU isn’t going to stand up for the right side on this one. That’s what UM was counting on when they tried this.
According to Debbie Schlussel, the University says it's prepared to defend against a lawsuit if one is filed. Personally, I would love to see them try. And if a lawsuit ever were filed, the press would have to pay attention (if not necessarily full and fair attention).
In spite of UM's claim to being ready to defend this nonsense if a lawsuit is filed, I actually believe that a lawsuit would make them drop their whole project as indefensible. If that's so, all that's needed to get UM in that defensive posture where they belong is: a Michigan plaintiff, a local lawyer who understands civil rights laws, (or better yet, a national advocacy group), and a few thousand bucks to get things started.
Let’s hope someone finds all that before construction begins.
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